What Does It Mean To Be Yourself?

In a society driven by image and success, learning how to be yourself is one of the most difficult things you'll ever do. Sharing personal challenges and insights from her book "Illusion," Carly Sotas explores how the fear of not being good enough prevents us from making an impact and achieving our dreams.

Carly Sotas is the author of Illusion, a non-fiction book that explores questions of identity, happiness, and success. As a teenager, Carly read magazines for advice on how to be successful and confident but was left feeling discouraged and inadequate, because the lifestyle presented seemed unattainable. Motivated by a desire to start a more relatable and authentic conversation, Carly wrote Illusion, sharing her struggles in hopes of letting other young people know that they are not alone in the challenges they face and in their desire to pursue their dreams. With a passion for youth development and education, Carly serves as the co-program director of Vancouver’s Heart of the City Piano Program, a music education program that provides accessible music lessons to underserved youth. She is also the co-founder of the Pencils of Promise chapter at The University of British Columbia, the global education organization to which she is donating the proceeds from Illusion.

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How to Stop Attracting Negative People to Your Life

Placing your attention, energy, and focus on the negative aspects of some people in your life brings you more of the same. Simply put, that’s the Law of Attraction at work.

When you shift your attention to the kinds of people you DO want in your life, that shift, coupled with your clear desire to STOP attracting negative people into your life, will set the energy in motion for new results to show up. When you shift from what you don’t want, to what you do want, your vibration changes. And know this-you can only hold one vibration at a time! The Law of Attraction is always matching your vibration in any given moment.

The Law of Attraction can be used to ensure that you are always in vibrational harmony with the people you are attracting into your life. If you plot your vibration on a scale that measures from 1-100, with 100 being the highest calibration, you are currently attracting other people into your life that match your score on this scale. In other words, if your vibration measures 75 on this scale and a person in your life measures closely to that, you are a close vibrational match. It is also important to realize that if your vibration measures 30 on this scale, you are a close match to another person whose vibration is at 30.

Your feelings always tell you if you are in vibrational harmony with another person. When you meet someone who is offering a significantly lower vibration than yours, you often feel dragged down by that person, i.e. the experience just doesn’t feel good. On the other hand, when you are with someone who vibrates closely to your score, it feels good to be with them. You are in vibrational harmony with that person. Suppose you are the one with a much lower vibration. If you experience a person with a significantly higher vibration, you may feel uplifted and raise your vibe to match theirs, or you may feel uncomfortable being around them. In short, the distance between your score and the score of another person equals the extent to which it doesn’t feel good. We call that resistance. The greater difference in the scores, the greater resistance there is.

Here’s a great tool to help you next time you experience a negative person in your life. While you are having a conversation with that person; perhaps listening to them describe (in great detail) what they don’t want and how negative their life is, ask them the following question: “So, what do you want? How would you like it to be different?” In their response, they will stop talking about what they don’t want, and start talking about what they do want. At that very moment, their vibration will shift and they’ll start raising their vibration to match yours.

Remember too, people treat you the way you allow them. In Law of Attraction, this means that you can set your vibrational boundaries so that you will only participate in and maintain positive conversations. Feeding into somebody’s negative conversation will bring your vibration down. Decide today to maintain your high vibration and stop feeding into other people’s negative vibes. This will go a long way to maintaining your high, positive vibration, which will in turn, attract other people with high, positive vibrations into your life.

Don't let fear block all your manifestations!

It is alright to be afraid, but you don't have to be afraid of being afraid. That's what usually stops you. 

Let yourself dive into the fear, process it, and then you will know through your feelings, through your emotionality, what it is about yourself that you have been taught to separate, to segregate, and what you can bring back and absorb and integrate within you.

More often than not, you do not allow yourselves to feel, or to be in touch with feelings that would help you integrate yourself, because you are afraid of being afraid. 

You remove yourself two steps beyond the original feeling. You can be afraid and still do anything you want. Being afraid does not stop you from doing what you want. 

Being afraid of being afraid stops you. Understand the difference. Just being afraid about something directly does not ever stop you from doing what you want.

What is fear? According my good friend Esther Hicks, she said fear is me looking at something that I don't want and my inner being refusing to go there with me. 

The feeling of fear, or any negative emotion, is me looking at something and my inner being saying "you can look, dear one, but I'm not going to look, I'm going to stay over here with your dream. I'm going to stay over here and tend to the dream and the only reason that you're feeling that fear is because you're not tending to your dream. So, come over here with me." 

And you say "no, I'm dedicated to fear." And your inner being says "come over here, this is where you really are, this is who you've become, come over here." And you say "no, I'm going to stay over here and be afraid."

So you have to say "my fear is natural given the thoughts I'm thinking and I can't control the conditions that I'm afraid of, but I can control my attention to them."

You're not feeling fear because the condition exists, you're feeling fear because you're looking at the condition activated in your vibration and causing contradiction in your own energy stream. You don't feel fear because there are bad things out there and you know that because bad things were out there before you knew about them and you didn't feel fear.  

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These 12 Habits Will Help You Reach Financial Freedom

Achieving financial freedom is a goal for many people. It generally means having enough savings, investments, and cash on hand to afford the lifestyle we want for ourselves and our families—and a growing nest egg that will allow us to retire or pursue the career we want without being driven by earning a certain amount each year.

Unfortunately, too many of us fail to achieve it. We are burdened with increasing debt, financial emergencies, profligate spending, and other issues that thwart us from reaching our goals. And we encounter unexpected events, such as the pandemic, that overturn our plans and reveal holes in the safety nets we tried to weave for ourselves and our families.

Trouble happens to nearly everyone, but these 12 habits can put you on the right path.


KEY TAKEAWAYS

Set life goals, both big and small, financial and lifestyle, and create a blueprint for achieving those goals.
Make a budget to cover all your financial needs and stick to it.
Pay off credit cards in full, so you carry as little debt as possible, and keep an eye on your credit.
Create automatic savings via your employer’s retirement plan and by setting up an emergency fund.
Take care of your belongings, as maintenance is cheaper than replacement, but, more important, take care of yourself and stay healthy.

1. Set Life Goals
What is financial freedom to you? A general desire for it is too vague a goal, so get specific. Write down how much you should have in your bank account, what the lifestyle entails, and at what age this should be achieved. The more specific your goals, the higher the likelihood of achieving them.

Next, count backward to your current age and establish financial mileposts at regular intervals. Write it all down neatly and put the goal sheet at the very beginning of your financial binder.

2. Make a Budget
Making a monthly household budget—and sticking to it—is the best way to guarantee that all bills are paid and savings are on track. It’s also a regular routine that reinforces your goals and bolsters resolve against the temptation to splurge.

3. Pay Off Credit Cards in Full
Credit cards and similar high-interest consumer loans are toxic to wealth-building. Make it a point to pay off the full balance each month. Student loans, mortgages, and similar loans typically have much lower interest rates; paying them off is not an emergency. Paying on time is and will build a good credit rating.

4. Create Automatic Savings
Pay yourself first. Enroll in your employer’s retirement plan and make full use of any matching contribution benefit. It’s also wise to have an automatic withdrawal for an emergency fund, which can be tapped for unexpected expenses, and an automatic contribution to a brokerage account or something similar.

Ideally, the money should be pulled the same day you receive your paycheck, so it never even touches your hands, avoiding temptation entirely. However, keep in mind that the recommended amount to save is highly debated. In some cases the feasibility of such a fund can be a question.

5. Start Investing Now
Bad stock markets can make people question this, but historically there has been no better way to grow your money than through investing. The magic of compound interest will help it increase exponentially over time, but you need a lot of time to achieve meaningful growth. Don’t try to be a stock picker or trick yourself into thinking you can be the next Warren Buffett. There can only be one.

Instead, open an online brokerage account that makes it easy for you to learn how to invest, create a manageable portfolio, and make weekly or monthly contributions to it automatically. 

Achieving financial freedom can be very difficult in the face of growing debt, cash emergencies, medical issues, and overspending, but it is possible with discipline and careful planning.

6. Watch Your Credit
Your credit score determines what interest rate you are offered when buying a new car or refinancing a home. It also impacts seemingly unrelated things, such as car insurance and life insurance premiums.

The reasoning is that someone with reckless financial habits is also likely to be reckless in other aspects of life, such as driving and drinking. This is why it’s important to get a credit report at regular intervals to make sure that there are no erroneous black marks ruining your good name.

7. Negotiate
Many people are hesitant to negotiate for goods and services, worrying that it makes them seem cheap. Overcome this cultural handicap and you could save thousands each year. Small businesses, in particular, tend to be open to negotiation, where buying in bulk or repeat business can open the door to good discounts.

8. Continuous Education
Review all applicable changes in the tax laws each year to ensure that all adjustments and deductions are maximized. Keep up with financial news and developments in the stock market and do not hesitate to adjust your investment portfolio accordingly. Knowledge is also the best defense against those who prey on unsophisticated investors to turn a quick buck.

9. Proper Maintenance
Taking good care of property makes everything from cars and lawnmowers to shoes and clothes last longer. As the cost of maintenance is a fraction of the cost of replacement, it’s an investment not to be missed.

Learn to know the difference between the things you want and the things you need.

10. Live Below Your Means
Mastering a frugal lifestyle by having a mindset of living life to the fullest with less is not so hard. Indeed, many wealthy individuals developed a habit of living below their means before rising to affluence.

This isn’t a challenge to adopt a minimalist lifestyle or a call to action to head to the dumpster with things you’ve hoarded over the years. Making small adjustments by distinguishing between the things you need and the things you want is a financially helpful habit to put into practice.

11. Get a Financial Advisor
Once you’ve gotten to a point where you’ve amassed a decent amount of wealth—be it liquid investments or tangible assets that aren’t as readily available to convert to cash—get a financial advisor to educate you and help make decisions.

12. Take Care of Your Health
The principle of proper maintenance also applies to the body. Invest in good health with regular visits to doctors and dentists, and follow health advice about any problems you encounter. Many problems can be helped—or even prevented—with lifestyle changes such as more exercise and a healthier diet. Some companies have limited sick days, making it a notable loss of income once those days are used up. Obesity and ailments make insurance premiums skyrocket, and poor health may force earlier retirement with lower monthly income.

The Bottom Line

These 12 steps won’t solve all of your money problems, but they will help you develop healthy habits that can get you on the path to financial freedom—whatever that means for you.

From my friend Matt Danielsson

New Year 2020 - New Life